Ben Halpern

Posted on Jul 12, 2020

What do you do within the first 30 minutes of starting your work day?

#discuss #productivity

Whether a job or working on your portfolio or side projects, etc. How do you typically start? Is your routine consistent or varied?

Oldest comments (85)

Douglas McKechie • Jul 12 '20

Routine is pretty consistent. After arriving at the office I quickly eat breakfast while checking emails, then its DEV stand up where we cover what we did yesterday, plan for today, any stucks etc.

SuperMario • Jul 12 '20

Wait for our TEST environment to get brought up by hand.

Every.
Single.
Day.

Gary Bell • Jul 13 '20

I actually had to re-read that a few times to make sure it said what I thought it said.

And now I am sure it says what I think it says, I can only politely say "wait, what?!"

SuperMario • Jul 13 '20 • Edited

The joys of decades old ancient codebases, mainframes and 2018 frontend ui frameworks.

Real treat! We did it again today! 🤣🤣🤣

Saša Zejnilović • Jul 13 '20

Are you humble-bragging that you have a test environment?

SuperMario • Jul 13 '20 • Edited

If it worked like it was supposed to, then yes Sir. 🤣🤣

Honestly, that is what I do for the first 30 minutes of every workday.

Besides, everyone knows by now to only test in Production.

At least, everyone outside of my enterprise. 😏

Thomas H Jones II • Jul 14 '20

By hand??? Oof.

For anything that actually needs to persist to the next day (that also isn't a core support-service like login- or vaulting-hosts, GitLab, Jenkins, etc.), we add them to our power-scheduler.

SuperMario • Jul 14 '20

We have a scheduling tool, but bringing up the environment isn't my wheelhouse. I just test the things. 🤣🤣❤️💯

Thomas H Jones II • Jul 14 '20

Group I work for is the technical cloud-enablement group. Our group got created months before the first cloud-services users started to explore moving to cloud. Because the budgets were allocated to those other groups, we were pretty much forced by necessity to implement scheduling tools so we wouldn't blow our budgets each month.

Necessity: the mother of invention. =)

Dennis O'Keeffe • Jul 12 '20 • Edited

I have one of those small, cheesy "todo list" note pads.

I generally spend the start of office hours writing down all the things that are on my mind that need to be done. This includes aggregating small TODOs from JIRA, Slack, calendar etc. It might sound like repeating what is there, but it helps me keep an awareness of how the day looks in a centralised, analog fashion (emphasis on analog).

I always leave a little bit of space on the left, so then I go back over the list after writing all the TODOs and number them from 1..n in terms of priority to use throughout the day and also attempt to "guesstimate" and allocate time (generously). So it might look like this:

[  ] 5 (1hr) Prep notes for X
[  ] 4 (3hr) Add e2e tests for X
[ x ] 1 (2hr) Refactor X
[  ] 3 (30min) Email support about X
[ x ] 2 (90min) Write Performance self-review

I find it does the following:

Sets me up for what my day looks like.
Gives me an easily accessible place on my table to check things off and feel like I am accomplishing things.
Helps me correctly position my availability to others and helps with saying "no" to things or knowing what can give.
Helps position how much time I need on something to others. This is almost always impossible, but I've found over time that my "generous" time has refined and become more accurate to the unknowns.

It is also where I try to stay mindful of external things I also need to do throughout the day (doctor appointments, etc).

Maybe its just the routine of doing so, but without it can feel like I have no idea what I am doing and finish the day forgetting some of the important things that I have done!

𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐝𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐝 • Jul 13 '20

I love a good to-do list! It's not as sophisticated as yours, but it helps me quickly see what jobs I have on for the day :) I always prep my list for the next day just before leaving work.

SuperMario • Jul 13 '20

If you have a W10 box, MS ToDo is awesome for the content in your image.

ItsASine (Kayla) • Jul 13 '20

Coffee, read emails, morning standup

Email routine is delete anything spammy (Jira and Gitlab notifications), archive anything vaguely useful (official workplace heads-up stuff), and leave anything in the inbox that needs dealt with for later (lol I'm not that important).

If one of the dumb Jira emails was from the daily subscription for support tickets, pull those up with the Jira board in preparation for stand up screensharing. I mostly just gesture towards the board with my mouse during stand up.

Once all that's out of the way, I can get into the day :)

Ryan Smith • Jul 13 '20

In the morning I'm rested and renewed, so not squandering that mental and physical state is very important for me. I focus on my core responsibilities that I need to get done which are usually my programming tasks. I'm starting with getting a drink, opening my editor plus any documents I need, then getting going on coding. I know what I need to do, so I'm not fussing around with to-do lists, reminders, or wondering what I should pick up next. I am trying to stay consistent in that routine.

That usually means getting up a little earlier and working before everyone else, but it is huge for my productivity. No distractions from emails, chats, or meetings. There isn't much to induce stress and anxiety. Tasks that seem daunting late in the afternoon really aren't that bad with a couple of focused hours in the morning after a good night's rest. I'm not a morning person and don't enjoy it, but it feels good to have that quiet time to code and make significant progress.

Thomas H Jones II • Jul 14 '20

Being someone who actually gets proportionally more-tired for every 15 minutes I sleep beyond about the 5.5 hour-mark, it's long been my default to start my day early ...even earlier now that my "commute" is one flight of stairs from my bed to my couch. :p

But, it's always been great to have a few hours of uninterrupted time to focus on things.

Jonathan Yeong • Jul 13 '20

My routine when I first start my workday is:

Fresh cup of coffee or tea.
Journal to understand my intentions for today.
Todo list for the work features.
Mon, Wed, Fri - read through emails. JIRA ticket cleanups. Kind of nothing tasks that make me feel productive.
Tue, Thur - I dive straight into focused work. Quit slack, headphones on.

Generally, this is pretty consistent. It's only on days my dog wakes me up and I can't go back to sleep where everything falls apart. Didn't realize how important sleep was until I got older.

Garrett / G66 • Jul 13 '20

Not much, to be honest.

Adrian Perea • Jul 13 '20

I brew a cup of coffee, do light yoga, and (attempt to) solve a picross puzzle. Was fortunate enough to find a book so I can stay screen-free for the start of the day.

Dennis Quesada Cruz • Jul 13 '20

Get a ride to other province at 35 km 😅

Jason C. McDonald • Jul 13 '20 • Edited

I was introduced to Bullet Journaling on Saturday, and it already seems to be something that will solve a few recurring time management hurdles leftover from my head injury. So, that'll be my new "first 30 minutes" thing! (I hope to update later on how that's going).

Larizza Tueros • Jul 13 '20

I start the timer with a pomodoro app and 25min for reading mail, reviewing pulls and setup tasks. If time is left I read a random blog post or check hackernews, after that the daily's meetings and work :)

Elliot Derhay • Jul 13 '20

Get a tall glass of water, get all my applications running, go through email, check Slack, get back to whatever the most important project on my plate is at the time.